Literally a Bombshell

The Week magazine described it as a bad week for pedants.

The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary have surreptitiously changed the definition of “literally” so that it is no longer wrong to use it to describe metaphorical acts.

The word can now be "used for emphasis".

The new usage was actually added in 2011, said a spokesman, "but it seems to have literally slipped under the radar".

This is not really new... 'literally' has just gone the way of 'very', 'truly' and 'really', all of which used to indicate literal truth and then were co-opted for emphasis.

Now we need a new word :) Any candidates?

I'm happy I never bought the OED.

Years ago, I was watching a Celtics game when commentator Tommy Heinsohn, a former Celtic himself, said, "Robert Parrish was literally mugged on that play."

Literally? How much did he lose?

>1 jbbarret: ... was actually added in 2011

... it was actually first included in the OED in 1903.

#4, nice

I'm so confused now. It's being pedantic to say that "literally" ≠ "metaphorically", but we pedants often refer to the OED as a mighty tome of So There. And now the OED has betrayed us.

Where do I go now for my Argument From Authority.

6 > This group, obviously ;-)

But, but, but...

Havingly once (and that was enough) been 'castigated' by the "I survived the Great Vowel Change" Group, for daring to 'even suggest' prescriptive rather than a descriptive approach to English I am sometimes scared :-)

Will any group be 'gentle' with me? Warm bunnies?

Outrageous. What's next? Less=fewer?

Uuuunnggghhhhhhh! Off to burn my copy of the OED. . . . .

>9 darrow:

Under LESS (adj (and n), adv and conj), sense 1.c, the OED says A smaller number of; fewer. This originates from the Old English construction of lǽs adv. (quasi-n.) with a partitive genitive. Freq. found but generally regarded as incorrect.

The oldest citation is indeed from King Alfred in the year 888, the latest from a 1972 detective story. That's the trouble with descriptive dictionaries...

#10 Uuuunnggghhhhhhh! Off to burn my copy of the OED. . . . .

That is how I felt the year the OED included "organisation" as an alternative spelling for "organization".

We need an "accademy anglais".

>10 Booksloth:,12
I think Booksloth will be busy for a while: by the time you've schlepped all those volumes out to the garden and got a fire hot enough to consume that dense paper... Another advantage of the DVD edition: all you have to do is give it 15 seconds in the microwave.

If we had an A(c/cc/k/ch)ad(e/a)m(y/ie/ye) it would probably devote its first two or three years of discussion to deciding on the correct form of its own name, and the next three or four years to deciding where it should have its permanent seat: Washington DC, Houston, or Mumbai...

#13 ...where it should have its permanent seat: Washington DC, Houston, or Mumbai...

thorold, are you familiar with the concept of an Internet troll?

:-)

Sorry, I meant to say "Washington DC, Houston, Edinburgh or Mumbai..."

6> but we pedants often refer to the OED as a mighty tome of So There. And now the OED has betrayed us.

If that is what you have been doing then you have been misled. Pendant = presciptionist. OED = descriptionist. The two do not mix.

#15 You are good! You are very good!

;)

#16 Pendant = presciptionist. OED = descriptionist.

Is a "presciptionist" a "prescriptionist" after three pints of beer?

:-)

And a "pendant" a "pedant"?

> 10 - I once tried to burn an particularly awful calculus book- very hard to keep it going.

>20 Helenoel: Calculus On Fire? Here?

16> I was being facetious, but it is fairly common to bust out the dictionaries to prove a pedantic point.

#10/12/13 Of course, as my daughter pointed out, my current OED is correct. Literally correct. As opposed to the latest version which is only literally correct.

18, 19> I never claimed to be pedant or pendant. I haven't even actually joined this group, I only watch it.

>24 jjwilson61:
...which would make you a hanger-on, or pendant!

I award thorold 3.5 groans for that one.

#26 Seconded.

Incidentally (almost), any thoughts on the origin of 'bombshell', which seems to be a literary/journalistic construction quite separate from the realities of 'bomb' and 'shell'?

In order to foul 'prior art' on a (propelled) shell which can also be used as a (dropped or placed) bomb, remember you saw the idea here first ...

Resorting as always to the OED: they have a citation from 1708 "...kill'd by a piece of Bomb-Shell" that clearly uses it literally for "the shell of a bomb" (i.e. what we would call shrapnel), but the next instance is from Motley in 1860: "The famous..letter, which descended like a bombshell, in the midst of the decorous council-chamber" — more or less the modern figurative use.

I had a look at "bomb" and "shell". The OED isn't very clear about it, but it looks as though in the 17th and 18th century you could use them interchangeably, most commonly for the explosive projectile you fire from a mortar. At some point in the 19th century they seem to have split, with "shell" becoming the explosive projectile fired from a rifled gun, and "bomb" an explosive device that is placed or thrown.

In this week's 'Private Eye', ('Commentatorballs' column), there's a quote from Denise Lewis, BBC1, who commented, "She literally could not put a foot down".

#30 Forced levitation?

A swimmer with short legs?

>32 thorold:

That would be Bob.

My local bus service has a single seat at the front. A sign above says "Only children who can place their feet firmly on the floor may use this seat."

I suppose it keeps levitating children away.

#34 Not to mention amputees. Sounds highly discriminatory to me.

>34 darrow:
...also seems to be rather unfair to people with siblings.

I recieved an e-mail today from the IT Administrator:

I’ll need to make a change to the exchange server @ 1pm today, if you experience any issues please restart Outlook.

I thought it very generous of the IT Department to come up with a way to readicate all our issues. It makes life so much simpler.

>36 thorold: We have local authority signage (smirk) on our buses that headlines "Are you a parent or do you care for children?"

#38 ...or do you care for children?

Fried or boiled?

I love children. I couldn't eat a whole one by myself though. http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=rimshot&play=true

> 38

I could literally care less.

I couldn't

Reported this week by Private Eye:

Aston Villa literally metaphorically had their pants pulled down
(Dion Dublin, BBC1)

#43 That's virtually literal. :-)

It's hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs. They always take things literally.

On the other hand there was the beachcomber who always took things littorally.

...and the dice-player who took things aleatorically.

The book thieves are even worse. They always take things literary.

It's time we stamped out philately.

And now to the rescue:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/04/18/literally_chrome_browser_exte...